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suraj.sun writes to tell us that Engadget got an early look at the new Windows Phone 7 series early prototype (and included a video). "The QWERTY slider is the first branded Windows Phone 7 Series device the world's ever seen, and while the hardware and software are both obviously early, we can tell you a few things about it: it's just a hair thicker than an iPhone or Nexus One, there are dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons in addition to the back, home, and search buttons dictated by Windows Phone 7 Series, and we noticed a five megapixel camera with a flash on the back, along with a headphone jack. Can't say much apart from that right now, since things are so early and everything is subject to change, but things are certainly moving along."

Indeed - the equivalent Apple story would be about a mere rumour of a new phone, based on some idle speculation on a non-notable blog, claiming he'd noticed Apple were ordering in some new electronic equipment from some far off country...

And we'd get that story posted everyday, for the next three months.

LG have vastly more market share in the phone market than Apple - yet when was the last time we had a story on them? Compared with daily ones for the Iphone...

I've not seen a lot of the Win 7 Mobile UI but what I have seen suggests that Microsoft can't quite bring themselves to abandon desktop Windows style design elements in favor of things more appropriate to the small screen of a handheld.

This [lukew.com] sums it up well. If you put those same screenshots next to an Android phone you'd have the same result. Win 7 Mobile wastes a lot of space and spends a lot of time looking whizzy, without really accomplishing anything. Animating every action was forgivable 10 years ago i

When I first saw the new WinMo 7 interface, I thought that the UI was chopping off parts of words because it wasn't finished, or wasn't quite designed for the phone they were demonstrating it on. Now that I know that is how they WANT it to look, this has fail written all over it. It is ugly and cluttered, and given that this was *supposedly* a ground up re-write, I don't know WHAT they were thinking.

Bottom line, this sucks. There are 4 (maybe 5) major "smartphone" players:

The thing about Symbian is that it really isn't a "global" player despite having a large marketshare. No matter what you think about the US it is a primary source of SW development as well as hype and branding. Nokia for some unknown reason has essentially abandoned the American market starting about 5 years ago. You can find them here and there but back in the day everybody owned a Nokia. Today it just simply isn't on the radar of Americans or more importantly the significant American software and services

First - yeah, US market is important but...don't overestimate its importance in relation to the rest of the world. It's quite atypical market. Look how well Nokia is doing in the rest of the world anyway, with them being the only major cellphone manufacturer that's very profitable (others are either out of the market, struggling financially, or mobile phones are far from vast majority of their business; RIM might be an exception - though do they sell phones or corporate/carrier service?)

Secondly, it's not much of a mystery why Nokia isn't really present in the US - several years ago (when mobiles really started becoming more than voice + sms) it refused excessive castration of its phones, which was demanded by US cellphone carriers...and there you go.

>> several years ago (when mobiles really started becoming more than voice + sms)>> it refused excessive castration of its phones,

Er, actually, it was more because none of Nokia's phones could do EDGE, none of Nokia's phones could do 3G UMTS on AT&T's 850/1900 uplink/downlink frequencies, and T-Mobile had no 3G UMTS network at all until about 18 months ago. As a result, Nokia's higher-end phones were useless GPRS paperweights in America. Ditto, for Canada (Rogers uses the same frequencies as

What are you talking about? The first EDGE phone in the world, Nokia 6200 (launched 2002), had also AT&T as its launch carrier. The first 3G phone in the world, Nokia 6650, launched at the beginning of 2003...with version for US market/frequencies, 6651, soon after.

> What are you talking about? The first EDGE phone in the world, Nokia 6200> (launched 2002), had also AT&T as its launch carrier.

OK, let me rephrase that. None of their high-end PDA phones, starting sometime around 2005, seemed to support EDGE or AT&T's UMTS frequencies. I was told point blank by a group of Nokia evangelists right around the time their first internet tablet came out that none of their flagship phones available at that point could do anything besides GPRS in America. Some casu

Not to mention that you confuse yourself. If you want to say that it's only the US market that matters (obviously I'm irrelevant, here in the UK), that's all very well, but you start off by saying they're not a global player. Which is it? Globally, Nokia are the market leader, by far. Globally, Apple are behind Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, and RIM.

But even if we're talking only of the US, let's see some citations on market share

But that's a distinction not that dissimilar to the ones between OSes in PC world - you have small minority choosing Apple, small minority choosing Linux (and similar alternatives) but "unwashed masses" get a PC that happens to have Windows running it; manufacturer of which is quite successfull if you ask me...

Oh, and in case of Nokia they actually play very nice; I don't really see in which area they haven't earned their success (nvm great service they are doing for humanity)

But that's a distinction not that dissimilar to the ones between OSes in PC world - you have small minority choosing Apple, small minority choosing Linux (and similar alternatives) but "unwashed masses" get a PC that happens to have Windows running it; manufacturer of which is quite successfull if you ask me...

They are successful because people write tons of software for Windows.

But here you have a totally different situation. Almost no-one is writing Symbian applications, even though as you say it's the m

Though IMHO saying "almost no-one is writing Symbian applications" is a bit of a stretch. Ovi store has quite a bit of them; Symbian also nicely runs tons of j2me apps. Plus...I think you overestimate the importance of vast, vast number of apps. How many Windows apps are actually widely used? How come Debian isn't the most succesfull OS with its repositories? How many apps on Apple AppStore (or generally) are junk? There's some point of balance there, with the pure number of apps not being the only indicati

Citation please? (And please, not one that only looks at "app" stores - the point is that we aren't restricted to an "app" store.) Plenty of apps for my phone. I can also use any Java application too - if you see more things specifically written for the Iphone, it's only because they've had to accommodate the awkward player that can't handle 15 year old technologies.

But I would argue that Symbian can hardly be included in the list since it's not really a part of the smartphone application race in any significant way.

Not a smartphone? What definition of "smartphone" are you using that includes phones like the Iphones (can't even multitask; first versions couldn't even copy and paste for heaven's sake - did they fix that yet?), but doesn't include Symbian?

The difference between Symbian and all other competitors on the list is, most people buy a phone that happens to have

You Americans can say you don't like it, but dismissing Symbian as a "major smartphone player" when it holds almost half of the global market is ridiculous. Putting WebOS and its tiny representation before Symbian borders on stupid.

Perhaps you just forgot about it, since Nokia won't bend over, open their ass and say "please" for the US carriers like the others do.

1 - Why would I care about "global" market share when I live in the US? I only care about phones that I can buy and use here. Is that hard to comprehend? I have no idea why Nokia doesn't have more of a market presence in the US, but again, it doesn't matter to me.

2 - Nokia puts Symbian OS on ALL their phones. So while it may be a "smartphone OS", installing it on barebones basic hardware doesn't make it a "smartphone"...

1 - uhmm, but you can buy them just fine - they just weren't promoted at all by carriers, that's all. Not only some US carriers have them; with Nokia you can easily truly own your phone and pick a contract/prepaid that's really a good deal (ok, that last thing might a problem in the US too...)

2 - that is completelly untrue. Symbian does NOT constitute most of Nokia sales. S30 and S40 (the most popular mobile phone platform on the planet) are NOT Symbian; the latter is only a small portion of Nokia sales.Per

> 1 - uhmm, but you can buy them just fine - they just weren't promoted at all by carriers, that's all.

They weren't "promoted" by AT&T and/or T-Mobile because they couldn't do data faster than 19.2kbps on either company's network, and no sane individual is going to spend several hundred dollars for an unsubsidized "smartphone" that takes 30 seconds just to handshake with a SMTP server or negotiate a https CONNECT.

Maybe they abandoned America, maybe they were kicked out. To Nokia, abandoning a tiny, f

Any device which you can install general purpose software (including deep, kernel level things on Symbian) and multi task is a smart phone.

If a future Symbian^3 or ^4 device does come with sub $100 price tag can do whatever my Nokia E71 can do, pity for me, I hurried. It doesn't change the fact that an army (100M+ devices/year) of devices, coming with Qt 4.x+ is on the way and if you are a developer who dismisses this _fact_ just because it isn't mentioned on your trendy web 2.0 sites, you are really missin

Microsoft - WinMo series - It wasn't until WinMo 6.5 that they *finally* got an OK touch only interface. I don't want to have to use a pointer to use my phone. Unfortunately there is still a lot of software that needs that pointer -- so MS came out with WinMo 7, with no backwards compatibility (that has been seen yet -- and I don't think there will be any), but the interface is aweful even for alphaware.

Why do you think the WP7 interface is awful? Love to hear some specifics... I'm sure I'll be considered biased since I work for MS, but I'm a huge fan of the new UI. And that's from someone who bought an iPhone day one... and haven't found anything better (including Android) until the Windows Phone announce.
Personally, I think the user-centric model MS has built, surfacing useful information from apps at a higher, hub level, is a nice step forward. Thoughts? Love to hear some specifics on why you dislike

PS. PS. Also, you left out Samsung bada OS. Yes, it's unreleased as of yet - but launching in two months, and with the stated goal of shipping on "significant portion" of Samsung mobile phones; I guess they want to ship it on everything except from the most basic devices.

It will be big (I suspect quite quickly second only to Symbian) for one simple reason: Samsung is second only to Nokia in marketshare, and significantly ahead of the rest.

On the other hand, I think it's the best looking Smartphone UI out there, bar none. I hate Android (and hate even more the fragmentation and inconsistency brought by mods like Blur), Blackberry is yawn inducing and the iPhone is starting to look a little long in the tooth. The Pre is nice but I'll be honest - I've never used it in person so can't really comment. From sheer visual appeal though - WinMo7 wins for me.

I've played with a Zune HD (which WinMo7 is based on) and it's great - really nice to use and

Actually, when you think about it, having the display be a window into a larger desktop is perfect for the current attention deficit generation. It will keep their attention occupied, scrolling all over the place looking at and for stuff. When they forget something they saw half a second ago, they will scroll back around some more to find it. I can see this type of UI keeping them occupied for tens of minutes at a time.

More generally, this UI might end up not much different from current "good" WinMob experience. Specifically - those implementations which put nice, polished homescreen with basic apps on top.

Yes, the basic experience might be nice. But 3rd party apps don't fit. With WinMob7 the situation might be better, after all every implementation will, supposedly, have the same UI paradigm/homescreen...but I don't really see how MS can enforce (with that kind of UI) solid, consistant, easy to follow / forced upon UI gu

Win 7 Mobile wastes a lot of space and spends a lot of time looking whizzy...

Fair enough, but maybe LG have finally learned a lesson from users' complaints: namely that the only difference between LG's own software and a bucket of shit is the bucket. If they can find anybody else's software to use, it's highly likely to be an improvement.

I have had many LG appliances, including phones, TV and a HDD PVR. The hardware is in some cases quite good (with a big exception that is off-topic in this discussion)

The programming structure that allows applications to easily call parts of other applications has delivered what I see as unprecedented inter-connectivity between mobile applications, which has increased mobile productivity for me on a personal level.

Example: I was out of town and looking for a Bank of America ATM. BoA has a mobile application for online banking that allows me to do all the usual things that I can do from my computer (see

I'd think that Microsoft is playing the "pay attention to me again! see, another release!" card, in hopes that they won't become obsolete in that computing space. Windows Mobile has been a crapfest for virtually every release, taking a GUI which really shouldn't work on a small device and shoehorning it in.

Forget openness, forget any sort of accountability. They're going to show you just enough to get you to theoretically throw down your heathen iPhones and Android devices and come home to Papa Ballmer, and

I don't think Microsoft's problem has ever been about the power of the underlying platform. What you just described has been easy to do (from a programming standpoint) in Windows Mobile for ages and there are several apps on my phone that are very location aware.

Setting aside them not being able to bring a touch friendly interface to WinMo fast enough, Microsoft's problem is that they assumed that their favorable position in the business phone market would magically carry over into the personal smart phone

The hardware rundown even sounds identical to the Motorola Droid (Hardware keyboard, volume rocker, power button, camera button, 5mp camera, flash)... Not saying that it's an uncommon configuration, but given that they compared it to the iPhone and NexusOne, what about comparing it to the other flagship Android device (the one that's the most popular in the USA)?

That was the point I was going for. No idea why the mods have moderated my initial post as flamebait - makes no sense. As you say, was highlighting that the specs are the same as many phones out there - im genuinely interested in how win 7 mobile plays out - but this article offers nothing at all on that. Meh, meta-moderation is a great thing;)

Indeed. It's probably because the media honestly think the mobile market consists of Apple and Google (despite them actually being two of the smallest players, way behind LG and Motorola). I suppose we should be thankful they cover LG at all...

Monopoly means you don't necessarily have to market (or market well) most customers are forced to come to you, like it or not.

Microsoft maintains their monopoly through a certain amount of shady business practices, but also because there is no enterprise competition to speak of. If Apple dropped their prices, or if the Linux community could settle on a cohesive set of basic standards, Microsoft could possibly lose their monopoly. Just because Microsoft is the only place you can buy Windows and Office doesn't make them a monopoly. If they somehow worked out a deal to outlaw other software, then I think you would hav

Apple needs more than a price drop to compete in enterprise space. They need a lot of developers and a good number of years to come up with worthwhile application stack that speaks to the business market. I doubt they will ever go there. As Apple fans are fond of saying, "You aren't Apple's target market." Apple's target market seems to be consumers with extra cash to spend, and consumers who want a reliable, consumer based computing experience. They don't care about ERP o

Unless IT guys get bribed by MS or they are plain stupid/ignorant, there are very very good solutions to access Exhange/MS servers on Blackberry and Symbian. In fact, Symbian ones come free in general.

Of course, having met a "Windows server" admin lately, I am not sure how will that idiot who recently forced an entire office to XP Pro from XP Home because he misunderstood a KB article will look for such solutions.

RIM enjoys a similar ignorance too, it is not widely known that most Symbian phones will happil

Unless IT guys get bribed by MS or they are plain stupid/ignorant, there are very very good solutions to access Exhange/MS servers on Blackberry and Symbian. In fact, Symbian ones come free in general.

Don't forget that Apple finally got on the bandwagon and licensing Active Sync from Microsoft. Now the iPhone seamlessly syncs with Exchange mail, calendar and tasks. If I weren't such a purist and attached to the keyboard on my Blackberry, I'd consider an iPhone.

I dunno - I actually like MS-Windows, it has a nice interface, its fast and its stable. I've had a lot of Macs (through work no less) I never found the UI to be that efficient unless you knew all the gestures and tricks. On face value its a lot more cumbersome to me (again - this is a PERSONAL preference!).

I swore up and down though I'd never buy another Windows Mobile phone - for the exact same reasons. Horrible UI, slow, and why should I have to reboot my phone every day? I actually like my Symbian phone

Its not a popular point of view here on slashdot, but I had a zune and thought it was far superior to the ipod. It was cheaper, had an FM tuner, and the software was IMHO easier to use than itunes, did all the same video things as an ipod, and was easy to use as an external hd. I never really understood why there was hate for the Zune on/. aside from the typical MS animosity.

But the Zune never achieved the Ipod's popularity, even though my friends that had them loved them. I stopped

I never really understood why there was hate for the Zune on/. aside from the typical MS animosity.

Blame it on the fact that Zune's early users were all forced to repurchase their music when the DRM scheme was upgraded for the new models. This wasn't just a blunder. After all, companies make blunders all the time. What makes this issue much bigger than a blunder is that Zune never corrected the issue, even in the face of thousands really pissed off customers!

Plus your comparison of Zune vs. iPod is misleading. If someone doesn't want to pay the hefty premium of an iPod, they'll just compare Zune against

I bought Creative. I really hate Creative but they have done several things right with their MP3 devices: no DRM standard, you can access it like a regular filesystem, so it works on Linux or any other OS as well. The bundled headphones did not suck, etc.

Let us consider: Microsoft is normally ridiculed for inferior products, yet frequently has dominant market share. So how is Microsoft marketing a failure?

Microsoft got its first dominant market share because there were no low cost usable alternatives. Their contractor lost monopoly on hardware, but microsoft software monopoly remained and they benefited from expanding hardware market. After that company abused in dominant market position to push products into other markets, to fight competitors and to spo

Ok, I get it: due to their market position, they don't need to do much marketing. Good point. But do you honestly think that the marketing they do is well designed or executed? (with the possible exception of XBox)

I just don't understand how a company with so many smart people in it can decide to release a product named "Windows Phone 7 Series". I'm honestly shocked they didn't try to stick "Live" in there somewhere.

Windows "Phone" shows where MS would be today if they didn't have an illegal monopoly on PC Desktop. They think people love and trust to Windows brand and would use it if they have been given a real chance to choose.

On the other hand, Symbian, iPhone OS (post 2.x) and various Linux based platforms and even ARM (CPU) itself enjoys the popularity which would occur on x86 Desktop if MS/Intel/IBM gang didn't exist. It is like the 80s home computer wars and it is fun to watch how amazing things come from competi

Monopoly with low quality of code. On a device which requires high quality and efficient code, they fail since there is Symbian, Maemo Apple etc. there.

On Desktop, inefficient code and security issues can be fixed with high speed cpu and security software. On devices, device needs reboot middle of a phone call or has comical battery life. The king on current smart phones is Apple, there is also RIM (Java, imagine!), Nokia (Symbian was developed for mobile) and Google giant. MS enjoys (!) the fact that they

I can't stand the WP7S UI, it just seems irritating. It's designed so nothing fits on the screen, even the date displayed on the pic in the article is truncated. To access anything you'll need to move horizontal and vertical.

It reminds me back in the days of 14" monitors. I remember that in Linux I could set up X to use a much higher resolution than the monitor supported and then you'd use the mouse to pan around the screen. I hated that then, I hate it now.

Make things fit on the screen where possible, scroll only when necessary.

Microsoft is just trying to look fancy with no thought on usability. You'd get tired of all this very quickly.

The difference between the implementation of X and WP7 is the Microsoft version has hard points in which the 'desktop' is viewed, whereas X was free floating. IMO, MS should move horizontally OR vertically (not both) since it would be easy to get lost.If done properly, I don't see an issue. However, as you stated -- the chances of it being a nuisance are very high if not done properly.

The horizontal/vertical scrolling action is an extension of the media center interface (and supposedly Zune, though I've never seen one) and it's not a bad way to go if they feel they need some eye candy (and that seems to be the only way to lure the masses). The one dimensional version of OS nav was recently a topic here on/. as the "next big thing" in finger-manipulated computer work spaces. The fact that they can't fit February on the screen is pretty stupid, but the overall interface makes sense when

I own a Zune HD, which works from the same concept. Allow me to explain it to you.

The idea is similar to how a desktop works stretched across multiple monitors.Yes, the background spans them all. However, any individual application only uses 1 monitor's worth of space.You go side-to-side to access another slice of screen, which is easily done by tapping your finger once on that side of the screen, where you see the next "monitor's worth" as a mini-screen of

It's a shaking motion. The designers thought that the most used motion should be used to the mostly needed command, and every phone has an acceleration sensor these days. Also, if something is not working, users shake the device automatically. Some of the designers suggested that this should be coupled to the user shouting "HELLO!", but that had some internationally challenging problems.

Now those rumors about Microsoft purchasing the Shake-Weight company [youtube.com] makes perfect sense - the paring on sales at Amazon are going to skyrocket Shake-Weight sales. Running low on energy always reseting your phone from a BSOD? Get Shake-Weight and have the arm strength you need to reset any Microsoft phone....

Agreed, I am not a fan of WinMo 6 at all - but it never gave me any real problems (regarding crashing or rebooting). Just ugly and hard to use at times - also, the Palm Treo wasn't exactly an eye-catcher (which I ran for a long time).

Looks a lot like a cheaper version of the G1 physically and the actual OS looks like it borrows ideas from the iPhone and Android. If MS is always going to rely on copying other people then they'll always be one step behind. Oh well, I'm sure they'll tie in with Windows in some way to gain an advantage.